Labor groups that backed Crowley ask for recount in D7

A District Seven resident, backed by the labor groups that supported F.X. Crowley in his run for District Seven Supervisor, officially asked for a recount of the close race Monday — but there may not actually be a new tallying of votes at all.

That’s because the independent expenditure committee backed by the San Francisco Labor Council isn’t sure how much a recount will cost, but thinks it could be upwards of $200,000. (To put things in perspective, the most money raised by a candidate in this year’s supervisors’ races was $235,000; the average amount among the big fundraisers was around $120,000.)

The cost is unclear because there’s never been a recount under San Francisco’s ranked choice voting system, which asks voters to choose not one but three candidates, then distributes the second- and third-choice votes from the other candidates to the top two vote-getters. It could take much longer than a regular recount, which usually cost around $5,000 a day in San Francisco.

Crowley, a longtime labor leader in San Francisco, lost to school board president Norman Yee by 132 votes in a race that took over a week and six rounds of counting to sort out. Yee’s margin of victory was 0.54 percent.

Any member of District Seven had until 5 p.m. Monday to request a recount — but under state law, they have to pay for it. Ultimately, Linda Plack, a former teacher who works for local teachers union, was the person who asked for the new tally.

Jim Stearns, the political consultant representing the labor-funded committee behind the recount request, said voters “deserve to know who actually won” what he called one of the closest elections since San Francisco instituted ranked choice voting. And, he said, they had to ask for a recount to fully understand the exact costs and what it will entail.

“It may be cost prohibitive for anyone to finance a recount under ranked choice voting,” he said. “But we won’t know whether it’s true or not until we ask.”

Crowley’s campaign had announced earlier Monday that it would not be the one to request the expensive job. Campaign manager Alex Tourk said Crowley “believes the Department of Elections should automatically launch a recount due to the extremely close nature of the race,” but would respect Elections Director John Arntz’s decision last week to certify the election results and had “decided not to task his generous contributors towards financing an official recount.”